Three Times Alex Reluctantly Spoke with Maggie
by brinshannara
Summary: Three conversations that Alex ends up having with Maggie, despite really, really not wanting to talk to her. All from 2x07. (The Darkest Place)
1. It's Been a Hot Minute

"Well," Alex said, bringing four beers to the table, "I bet he's working with a partner."

"Why? Why would you say that?" Winn asked.

"I'm just saying," Alex said, "in every situation, Guardian seems to be one step ahead." She walked around the table, back to her seat. "That screams sidekick." She didn't really know what to make of this new vigilante, but she was certain he had help.

"Sidekick?!" Winn exclaimed. "Okay, so, if, if this guy actually had a number two, I think they would actually be more equals," he said. Alex took a swig of her beer and watched curiously as James shot Winn a weird look.

"My cousin worked with a vigilante, once," Kara interjected. "Tons of gadgets, lots of demons. I mean, vigilantes are nuts!"

"Or maybe you are just afraid of the competition," James chimed in.

Kara scoffed. "No, no, no, no, Alex, you agree with me right?"

She nodded. "Mm hmm," she said.

"I mean, masks, the voice-changer things? It's weird. It's weird!"

Alex was in the middle of taking a swig from her fresh beer when she heard a familiar voice from behind her.

"Danvers!"

She nearly spat out her beer, her left hand coming up to her lips to wipe away any escaping liquid.

 _'Shit.'_

She forced herself to swallow, set the bottle back on the table and turned around, noticing that Kara had also turned at the mention of their family name, but Alex knew who had said it and that it had been intended entirely for her. As she expected, Maggie stood there, by a pool table. She really should have known better than to come back to the alien bar, but she thought that, on the off-chance Maggie was there, she wouldn't disturb her while in a group.

 _'No such luck,'_ she thought to herself, sighing inwardly. Talking to Maggie was pretty much the last thing she wanted to do right now. Or ever.

"Hey," Maggie said, a small smile on her face. "It's been a hot minute," she said, stepping closer. "How are you?"

Alex managed to get herself off the bar stool and walked a couple of paces over to the other woman. "Yeah, good, good, yeah," she stuttered, avoiding looking at Maggie in the eye. She then realized, with a sinking pit in her stomach, that she should introduce Maggie to her table.

"Uhhhh, everybody," she said, "this is Maggie." The other woman stepped forward to the table. "Maggie, this is, uhm, everyone." She took a breath. "This is James, Winn and," she exhaled, "Kara."

"Oh the sister!" exclaimed Maggie. "Oh, I've heard so much about you from Alex!"

 _'Oh my God, please, Kara, please, please, please, please don't-'_ Alex prayed fervently for Kara not to say anything that might complicate things.

"And I've heard all about you," she heard her sister say, knowingly.

Alex's eyes widened in panic and she silently swore vengeance on Kara later. Her worlds were colliding and she was absolutely not comfortable with that. Then Maggie turned back to her and Alex tried desperately to look cool and okay and in control and she was pretty sure she had failed. _'Dammit,'_ she thought to herself. This was the most awkward she had felt in a long time and awkward wasn't a word that was normally used to describe Alex Danvers. Confident. Self-assured. Strong. Those were all words she'd heard used to describe herself. Awkward just didn't make the list, at least not usually. Only, it appeared, when she was in the presence of the beautiful detective.

"Uh, can I borrow you a minute?" she asked, in a higher-than-usual-pitched voice.

Alex briefly went over the alternatives in her mind and, finding none other than dying of sheer embarrassment and discomfort, she shrugged and sort of nodded and said yeah.

Maggie smiled a goodbye to the table and they walked away from the group together.

"Hey, so you haven't returned any of my calls," Maggie said, in a low voice. "I've been worried about you."

"Oh," Alex exhaled. "I've been working." Work was always a convenient excuse, particularly as chunks of it were classified. She used it to excuse herself from irritating social events regularly. She realized, though, that this was the first time she was using it as an excuse with Maggie and she wasn't sure she liked it, but reasoned that it was self-defense.

Maggie rolled her eyes. "Right. There must have been a lot of rogue aliens at large," she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm, showing she wasn't buying it.

Alex chose to take her statement literally. "There always are," she replied, forcing a small chuckle.

Maggie stopped walking. "Listen, uhm..."

Alex stopped as well and reluctantly turned to face her.

"I just wanted to make sure everything was okay..." She paused. "With us. Because the last time we saw each other, things got a little... uhm, you know, like, complicated," she ended with a bit of a nervous laugh.

 _'Complicated?!'_ Alex thought to herself, annoyed. _'You break my heart and make me sob in my sister's arms and you call that complicated?!'_ She forced herself to remain composed. She shrugged. "I don't know," she said with a serenity that belied her chaotic emotions. "I thought they were pretty straightforward." She winced inwardly at her use of the word, but soldiered on. "You know, I'm fresh off the boat," she said, taking a bit of pleasure at throwing Maggie's words back at her. "That's not your thing." She shrugged. "It's no big deal." She remained calm, despite the fact that it _was_ a big deal. It was the _biggest_ of deals. This woman had made Alex realize she was attracted to her, encouraged her to come out to her sister and then rejected her. Big deal was the understatement of the century. She considered and decided she deserved an Oscar for her performance.

"I like you, Alex, it's just, y'know, the situation." Maggie smiled up at her. "It's nothing personal."

"No, I didn't think it was," she said smoothly, lying through her teeth. _'You don't want me,'_ she thought, _'of_ course _it's personal.'_

"Okay." Maggie's eyes flicked down for an instant and then back up, looking intensely into Alex's eyes. "Good. Still friends?" the shorter woman asked, a ten gigawatt smile on her face.

Alex paused, having tracked Maggie's glance. "Of course," she finally said, unable to resist Maggie's grin, despite the fact that she really didn't want to have to spend any more time than absolutely necessary with the woman who had caused her so much pain. Agreeing was the quickest way to escape, though, so she forced a smile back and they kind of nodded at each other. With that, Alex walked past her back to the relative safety of the table, deciding that she would deal with the repercussions of continuing to ignore Maggie Sawyer later.

"You okay?" Kara asked.

"Yeah," she responded, "I'm good." She was lying, of course, but that was mostly for the benefit of the others. There was no way she was going to come out to James and Winn, not here and not now. If she needed to, she'd talk to Kara later on. She sat down. "So, where is Mon-El?" she asked, desperately wanting to change the subject. "I mean, doesn't he practically live at this place?"

"Oh, knowing him, he's probably at Darla's apartment or Eve's apartment or with that blonde Valeronian... What's the word for a male floozy?" Kara asked.

"A Daxamite," Alex deadpanned, after a moment's thought.

"Hah!" Kara grinned and clinked bottles with Alex. "Well, at least he's having fun on Earth."

The others chatted for a few minutes with Alex barely paying attention. She kept replaying the conversation in her head as she fiddled with the label on her bottle of beer, occasionally smiling or nodding in agreement with the others at the table, hardly hearing anything.

 _"I've been worried about you,"_ Maggie's words echoed. They'd gone from texting several times a day to absolutely no contact whatsoever. After Alex had walked out of that very same bar, days ago, she hadn't returned any of Maggie's texts or phone calls. Even reading the texts or listening to the voice mails was difficult. It was as though each time her wounded heart started to scab over, Maggie would attempt to contact her, ripping the scab off and forcing her to start all over again. Just like tonight. Tonight's encounter had reset her "get over Maggie" progress to approximately negative seventeen. The other woman had the ability to undo her entirely. She took a long pull at her beer and sighed.

 _"I like you, Alex,"_ she had said. What did that even mean? It had given Alex hope, which is exactly what she didn't need when she was trying to get over Maggie. On the one hand, it meant that she liked her as a friend. _'As a friend,'_ she scoffed silently. Three words which caused Alex to grind her teeth. Or, and this was the dangerous part, it meant that Alex had been right in thinking Maggie felt similarly. It meant that Alex was reading the signs correctly, that Maggie was attracted to her, too. And she'd used her name. Not Danvers. Alex. She'd said it, the last time they'd seen each other. _"Alex, don't go,"_ she'd said. And again, she'd used it when talking to Kara. And then once more, just now. She knew that, for herself, she'd long ago stopped thinking of her as Sawyer. She'd become Maggie to her as she'd seen beyond the tough cop exterior and caught a glimpse of the woman beneath it. So did it mean something that suddenly Maggie was using Alex instead of Danvers all the time?

She sighed. This line of thinking was exactly what she shouldn't be thinking about. She shouldn't be thinking that maybe Maggie wanted her. She shouldn't be thinking about their kiss. She shouldn't be thinking about how she wanted to do it again. And again. And again. She sighed again and tipped her beer back, finishing off the alcohol. She stood up from the table and went to get another round.

Maggie had looked at her lips during their conversation. She'd noticed it, just a quick glance down and then back up to meet her eyes. Did it mean anything? Or was it literally because her lips were at eye level for the shorter woman? Was she thinking about their kiss? Or was Alex reading too much into something as simple as eye movement? Alex sighed and brought the drinks back to the table.

As Alex began her third beer of the evening, she considered how enthusiastically Maggie had reacted to Kara. She let a small smile rise to her lips. _'Did she think I was on a_ _ **date**_ _?'_ Alex nearly laughed out loud at the prospect of Maggie Sawyer being jealous of Kara - but then, she'd already shown she was a bit jealous of Supergirl. Running buddies, isn't that how she'd put it? She took another swig of the beer, considering the possibilities.

And then she stopped.

 _'This isn't helpful,'_ she told herself, sternly. _'Hope is the enemy here. She doesn't want you. She's told you as much. Just... forget her, Alex.'_ She took a deep breath and another drink of beer, trying to drown the pain of the rejection as well as the small ember of hope that kept threatening to burst into flame despite her best attempts to extinguish it.


	2. We Hung Out, We Got Close

"... with knowledge of Guardian's whereabouts or identity..." Maggie was saying on the television, as Alex came up the stairs. _'Of course, I can't even escape her here,'_ Alex thought. She made herself ignore the detective on the screen as she approached Winn. "Hey Winn, have you heard from Kara? The last I heard, she was on her way to help capture Guardian."

"She... she probably just missed him," he said. "She's at Catco, I'm sure. Uhm..." Winn's demeanour shifted. "Speaking of Guardian, you gotta tell your friend to lay off of him. Like..." he trailed off.

Alex furrowed her brow. "Why? What's it to you?" Something was off. She pinned him with a look.

He chuckled, nervously. "You know," he said, turning and walking away, "it's, um, you know, it's just, with, with your sister, and Superman, and Hank even, some- or J'onn... Uh, I just... I really support the vigilante cause."

"Yeah, well," Alex said, going down the stairs with him, "you heard it from my _friend_ ," she scoffed inwardly, "on the TV. Guardian isn't a vigilante. He's a murderer."

"Actually, no. He's not," Winn said, stopping on the landing.

The wheels in Alex's head turned. "Do you know something about Guardian, Winn?" she asked.

He exhaled and turned, practically running down the stairs, away from her, his actions confirming to her that he did.

She gave chase as Winn nervously tried to explain. "It's... I just... I know he's not a bad guy. All right? So, if you can just have your friend, Maggie, please give him a break."

Alex caught up with him, pulled him by the shoulder, spun him around and shoved him up against the wall in a well-practiced move. She grabbed his sweater in her fist and invaded his personal space. She was going to find out what this twerp knew about Guardian. "I know six different, _very_ painful ways to get you to tell me who Guardian is using my _index finger_ ," she threatened, pointing her finger at him for emphasis. "And before I go-"

"J-James, James, James, James!" he whispered, frantically. "It's James. G-Guardian is James," he admitted, quietly.

"Are you _kidding_ me?" Alex asked in a low voice, absolutely furious. Of course he was. It all made sense, now. That look James had shot Winn at the bar. Winn's insistence that Guardian's sidekick was more like a partner... Of course he would say that, _he_ was the damn sidekick! She cursed herself for not having seen it before. She exhaled, angrily, and stormed away from him, grabbing her cell phone. Kara was going to be so pissed at them.

"What are you doing? What are you doing?!" Winn asked, following.

"I am calling Kara!" Alex shot back.

"No!" Winn said, practically jumping up and down. "You cannot call Kara!" he whispered. "Alex, you cannot tell anybody about this! Not your sister, not Maggie, no one, all right? James is out there, he's trying to help!"

She looked at him, waffling. She knew she should tell Kara. She knew she shouldn't be swayed by anything Winn was saying.

"And, and he helped," Winn pressed, sensing her hesitation, "he helped stop Parasite, and he's going to help stop whoever this is who is really killing these people. Because you and I both know James, James Olsen is not a murderer!"

 _'Dammit.'_ She reluctantly put the phone away. He was right. Despite being extraordinarily stupid in this endeavour, James was not a murderer.

"Thank you," breathed Winn.

She looked back up at him, still incensed, and smacked him upside his head. "I will deal with the both of you later," she warned as she stalked off towards the locker room to change into her street clothes. Because now, now she had to go and talk to Maggie, which was the last thing she wanted to do, and ask her to back off of Guardian because Guardian was Jimmy _fucking_ Olsen. Alex clenched her jaw. _'Those two idiots!'_ she thought, angrily.

So now she had to ask Maggie for a favour for the aforementioned idiots. A favour! She slumped her shoulders in defeat as she walked into the locker room and she pulled out her phone to text Maggie.

"Hey, I need to talk to you about something important. Where are you?" she sent out, hating that she had to do so in the first place. She had vowed to herself that she would not contact Maggie, even though she'd told her that yes, of course they were still friends.

She changed into her street clothes and waited for Maggie's response. She was just putting the last of her DEO gear into her locker when her phone went off.

"Should be back at the precinct in about 15 or so. What's up?"

Alex sighed. "I'll meet you there," she responded, pocketing the phone. This was business. It was about Guardian and it was about the recent killings and nothing more. Alex shut the locker and headed out to the precinct by foot.

Twelve minutes later, as she was approaching the station, she saw Maggie's cruiser pull into the parking garage. Alex took the elevator up to B-Deck, which she knew was where Maggie's assigned parking spot was. She caught up with the detective as she was leaving the car, heading to the adjacent building that housed the police department.

"Danvers!" she said, smiling. "I was just texting you."

The two of them fell into step, walking together through the parking garage. _'This is all business, Alex. Keep it that way,'_ she warned herself.

"I need you to lay off Guardian," she said, without a greeting or any other preamble.

"You mean National City's mass serial killer?" Maggie asked in disbelief. "No way!"

"He's not a killer, Maggie, you're targeting the wrong guy," she replied, still walking, refusing to turn to face the detective.

"Okay," Maggie said, "I'm listening." She looked at Alex expectantly.

"No, that's it," she responded, glancing at Maggie and then spreading her arms a bit, indicating she had nothing else to share with the detective.

"You want me to drop my prime murder suspect, you gotta give me more than that," the cop retorted.

"I can't, it's classified," she replied, stonewalling her.

"Come on, Alex," she chuckled. "We're friends! You can tell me-"

That did it. Something in Alex snapped. "No, Maggie," she said, slowing, then stopping her forward motion and finally turning to face the detective. "We're not friends."

She hadn't intended to have this conversation, she wasn't prepared, but she'd had enough. So if Maggie was going to push her, Alex was going to let her have it - even if Alex's declaration that they weren't friends had resulted in the other woman looking as though someone had kicked her puppy.

"Uh, okay," Maggie finally said, trying to compose herself. "I'm lost. What happened?" she asked.

 _'What happened?! You broke my heart!'_ Alex had had enough. She was going to get all of this off her chest, all the feelings, all the frustrations. She was just going to let it all out, consequences be damned. "We hung out," she said, "we got close," she added. She formed circles with her thumbs and index fingers and brought them together for emphasis. "Then you called me out for liking you and then I had the guts to admit yes, it's true. And you told me that my feelings were real and that I deserved to be happy. So I thought you meant I deserved to be happy with _you_."

"Alex," Maggie sighed. "I-"

"No, no, no, I, I, I'm not done," Alex said, letting loose. "Because *then* you convinced me to come out to my sister, and I did." Alex was positive that Maggie didn't understand what a huge deal that had been for her, even still. She looked straight into Maggie's eyes. "Because I was sure of one thing and that was my feelings for _you_." She barely took a breath and continued. "Initially, I was _terrified_ , but ultimately? I was proud to come out, because... it wasn't just some _concept_. It was about my _feelings_ for this..." Alex looked down, grasping for the right word. She looked back up at Maggie."... amazing woman."

Maggie bowed her head, unable to look Alex in the eye.

"But now?" Alex continued, unabated, "I don't feel liberated... or, or like I am on some great journey. All I feel," she admitted, "is pain. Because you don't want me."

"No, Alex, that's not why-" Maggie tried to interject.

"Just, you know what?" Alex cut her off, waving her arm. "Save it. Okay? That's not what's important right now. What is important is that you back off Guardian." She punctuated the statement by pointing at Maggie and then turned and walked away.

 _'There,'_ she thought angrily, as she took the stairs down to street level, _'that's done.'_ She had explained everything to Maggie, explained how they weren't actually friends, how hurt she was over the rejection and how much it had affected her, none of which, it seemed, Maggie had even thought about. She scoffed silently at the other woman's lack of consideration. While she wasn't certain, she had an inkling that perhaps her unplanned outburst had ended any chance of an actual friendship. Surprisingly, that suited Alex just fine. Being rid of Maggie Sawyer in her life, outside of the odd professional interaction, was fine. She could have the space she needed to just get over her and move on. Move on to other people. _'Other women,'_ she corrected herself. Even date and fall in love with another woman who _did_ want her.

Alex nodded to herself as she walked back to the DEO, trying to convince herself that having the cop out of her life would be healthy. It would be good. She sighed, knowing that she still had a long way to go before she was anywhere close to getting over Maggie Sawyer.


	3. Two Minutes

It had been a supremely long day. There had been the discovery that James was Guardian and Winn was his sidekick. Then, the uncomfortable conversation with Maggie in the parking garage. Following that, she had run tests on J'onn to discover that something wasn't right with his bloodwork, resulting in the discovery that M'gann was, in fact, a _white_ Martian. Who knew what implications the transfusion would have on J'onn's green Martian physiology? As if that hadn't been enough, Alex had had to go - with Maggie, no less - to a warehouse that Winn and James had told her to go to. This was in order to make the NCPD realize that Guardian wasn't a killer and that the person they were after was actually Phillip Karnowsky. Alex wasn't even ready to think about how awkward that particular car ride was, not yet. Oh, and of course, there was the discovery that Kara and Mon-El had been held captive by Cadmus and were rescued by her own father, of all people, but then, by the time the DEO raided the facility, it had been cleaned out. Not only did Alex feel as though she had failed her sister by not even knowing she'd been taken prisoner, but she also felt like a failure for not getting back to Cadmus in time to rescue her father.

Alex was exhausted and worn out. She hadn't even had the energy to yell at Winn and James while they were out getting pizza and potstickers. She'd warned them it was coming, though, and they had thankfully had enough good sense to keep their mouths shut about their vigilante activities while on their food-finding mission.

Honestly, all Alex wanted to do was make sure her sister was okay, have some food and then maybe pass out on the couch while watching one of Kara's favourite romantic comedies with her. There was no way she was leaving her sister alone. Not after this long, terrible day.

Alex had just brought the plates to the table for the buffet-style dinner they were going to have when someone knocked on Kara's door.

"I got it," she called to the room.

She walked over and opened the door wide and saw Detective Maggie Sawyer standing there. Maggie quirked a quick smile at her that she barely noticed, that's how stunned she was. She stared for a moment, unable to think or move, when one thought popped into her head. _'Kara.'_ She sprung into action, muttering a "hey" as she took a step forward and started closing the door behind her, quickly turning to make sure Kara hadn't been visible to Maggie without her glasses on. She stepped all the way into the hallway, being sure to shut the door tightly behind her.

"Uh," she said, folding her arms across her chest, in a defensive fashion, wary of what brought Maggie to her sister's door. _'She must have remembered picking me up here, that one time,'_ she thought to herself. It wasn't as though DANVERS wasn't clearly labelled on the mailbox for 4A, after all. It didn't take a detective to deduce which apartment was Kara's. "What are you... uh... what are you doing here?" She knew it was rude and she knew that there was probably a better way of asking her that, but she was caught completely off-guard and, well, it had been a very long, very shitty day.

"I really need to talk to you," Maggie said, simply, "and if you just give me two minutes of your time, I promise I'll be out of your hair."

Alex looked over at the door to Kara's apartment longingly. She sighed. Against her better judgement, she agreed. "Two minutes," she warned.

"I heard everything you said. I get it. And if you never want to talk to me again," she paused, "I'll respect that. I'll disappear."

Alex was torn. The idea of never talking to Maggie again was both tempting and something that made her heart ache. So Alex just raised an eyebrow and waited to see where the other woman was going with this.

Maggie looked away and then back up at Alex, looking directly into her eyes. "But I don't meet many people that I care about." She paused, still looking Alex in the eye, confident. "And I care about you... A lot," she chuckled, nervously, then smiled, but maintained eye contact the whole way through, as though to reassure Alex that she was still there, despite the awkwardness from earlier in the day.

Alex, her arms still folded across her chest, furrowed her brow a little, trying to understand what Maggie was saying.

"You've become really important to me and... uhm..." The other woman finally broke her gaze. "I hope that one day," she said, looking back into Alex's eyes. "You and I could be friends." She paused, smiling, head tilting in a way that had become so familiar to Alex over the last few weeks. "Because I don't want to imagine my life without you in it."

She was too tired to make much sense of what the implications were of Maggie's words. She didn't want to work to find the hidden meanings, if any. Her heartstrings were being tugged on, but she was certain it wasn't any kind of manipulation. She'd been honest with Maggie and now, she felt, Maggie had been honest with her. She looked over at Kara's door and briefly considered inviting Maggie in, but that would get complicated, with Mon-El there, and the need to hide Kara's identity, not to mention the fact that Alex wasn't out to the boys yet, and... no. It was too much. So she took a couple of steps back to the door and pushed down on the handle, cracking the door open. She turned back to Maggie.

"Pool," she murmured, deciding that familiar territory would probably be a good place for them to relax and just enjoy each other's company. "Tomorrow night."

Maggie smiled. "Wouldn't miss it," she promised.

With that, Alex turned and stepped inside the apartment, shutting the door behind her, her overly-tired brain whirring.

"How was that?" Kara asked, crossing in front of her to get to the table.

"Ugh, spy much?" Alex shot back, a smile on her face. Of course Kara had listened in. She had probably been trying to decide if she needed to fly in as Supergirl and strand Maggie on some deserted island somewhere.

Kara chuckled and set down the bowl of popcorn she was carrying on the table.

Alex approached her. "It was good," she said with a sigh. "We're just..." She folded her arms across her chest again. "Gonna be friends."

"Okay," Kara said, quietly, nodding. She looked up at her, addressing the other worry in Alex's head. "We're gonna find Jeremiah, Alex. I swear."

What little self-control Alex had left after her harrowing day had vanished after her talk with Maggie. She felt the tears forming in her eyes. "But, he seemed, uhm... he seemed okay?" she asked, hopefully, a small tremor in her voice.

"He saved me!" breathed Kara. "And he was still..." She paused, searching for the words. "... him," she said, firmly.

Alex nodded. At least she had that glimmer of hope to hold on to. Her father was still out there. He was alive. He was okay. She took a breath. "I still can't believe Lena's mother is the head of Cadmus."

"Ugh, I know," Kara said. "I wonder if she knows?"

"Well, I want to know what Cadmus wants with your blood."

"You and I both," Kara sighed.

Alex nodded. "We'll find out, I'm sure," she said. "For now, though... comfort food and good friends."

"Mmm." Kara's eyes brightened at the mention of food. "Speaking of which, I'm going to go rescue the rest of the potstickers from Mon-El before he eats them all," Kara grinned.

"Good plan," Alex smiled.

She watched her sister head towards the living area, then continued to organize the table, thinking about her talk with Maggie. Ultimately, she wasn't sure they could make it work. She still liked the detective. She was still attracted to her. She didn't know how any of that was going to change if they continued to spend time together. But Maggie had heard her concerns and her fears and, most importantly, had understood her pain. And Maggie had been open and vulnerable and honest with Alex about how she cared about her.

She smiled to herself as she picked up a plate and started serving herself some food. Whether or not hanging out with her was the smart thing to do, Alex knew one thing: she was _definitely_ looking forward to kicking Maggie's ass at pool again. And maybe she'd actually be able to cash in on those drinks Maggie owed her for having come out to Kara. She nodded to herself. This could work. She smiled again and joined the group in the living room, still thinking about Maggie's words to her.

Later that night, after James had decided to go and Winn had insisted on taking Mon-El back to the DEO, after Kara had said goodnight and gone to bed, after Alex had grabbed a pillow and blanket from the closet, she lay there on the couch, completely exhausted and wide awake all at once.

Her thoughts were racing and they were thoughts about Maggie. Of course they were thoughts about Maggie.

She thought back to the time at the bar when Maggie had let her know that she'd been dumped. They'd played pool for at least an hour together, probably longer, and Maggie hadn't told her until Alex had made that lame joke. And, once they'd started discussing it, Maggie had left the bar, rather than be vulnerable and open with Alex.

But that night, Maggie had tracked Alex down to Kara's apartment and worn her heart on her sleeve.

 _"I care about you... a lot,"_ she had said. And though she'd been nervous about it, her gaze had never wavered. She had looked Alex right in the eye the whole time.

 _'What did that even mean?'_ Alex found herself wondering, now that she was alone with her thoughts. She didn't dare to hope that it meant that Maggie liked her.

 _'But what kind of person tells someone they don't_ _ **like**_ _that they don't want to imagine life without them?'_ she wondered.

Maybe this time, with everything out in the open, maybe they *could* be friends, but it was interactions like this which prevented Alex from finally being able to extinguish that tiny ember of hope that kept flaring in her chest. She was careful to keep it in check for the most part, but that night, after that long, hellish day, she let go and allowed that hope to spread through her heart.

Feeling warm and cared for, Alex was asleep within seconds, dreaming of Maggie Sawyer and her smile.


End file.
